What To Do With Content From SEO Perspective
-
With all the SEO focus now on creating and sharing unique and high quality content I ensure that is exactly what we do, however...
All we seem to do is add this content to our blog with some good quality images to break up the text.
Our articles are at least 800 words in length and they are always informative...
Once added to our blog we share the content across the 'big 3' social platforms (Facebook, Twitter & Google+)
I also do a little bit of 'internal linking' from the blog post to a relevant page on the main website - the blog is actually part of the website!
So, my question is... in light of the recent 'guest post' scaremongering and the fact that every blog owner I seem to 'reach out' wants payment should I look at Web2.0 platforms such as;
- Squidoo
- Hubpages
- Quora
- Triberr
- ...and the many other similar sites that exist
to add some of our content to?
Also what about Article Directories?
- Ezinearticles
- GoArticles
I know this seems like a 'throwback' to 2-3 years ago but I just wondered whether the above still have any credence?
Obviously I would be very selective with regard to 'back linking' and would ensure that I vary the anchor text - to be honest, as much as a link would be useful, it's more about brand exposure ...
Any advice \ recommendations would be greatly appreciated!
Andy
-
I agree completely with Simon. We too have attempted to syndicate content and had the sites we submitted to then outrank us with our own content. The fact is, if you submit your content to a site that has higher authority than you, chances are they will rank for the content, not you, even if you have canonical tags and authorship in place and even if you publish the content on your site first. We've seen this happen not just with content like articles, we've seen it happen with products (i.e. if we have the same products for sale on our site, Amazon and eBay, Amazon and eBay will outrank us for those same products), and we've certainly seen it with videos. Post the same video on your site and YouTube and YouTube will rank for the video, not your site.
This isn't to say nothing should ever leave your site or get posted externally. If your business or someone at your business wins an award or does something positively newsworthy, reaching out to a reporter or blog editor with a story is a great way to raise the brand awareness you seek and obtain valuable referral traffic from the exposure.
The scenario at my company is almost identical to yours. The other difficulty I face (and I'm sure you and Simon have seen this too as in-house SEOs) is one of vanity. Stakeholders can get very caught up in the number of views their videos are getting on YouTube, or the number of eyeballs an article will get if it's syndicated versus just placed on their own site. Convincing them that being the sole location of that original content is sometimes a hard sell. I think the best way to do that is to produce a couple of pieces of great content and convince them not to distribute those around, then track how well that content gets positioned in the SERPs. If you can show them some real examples of the strategy being successful on a small scale, they'll be more apt to allow you to continue down that path. Hope that's helpful!
-
Personally, I'd focus on your own site and keeping your content quality and unique. In the past we have had our fingers burned by syndicating content to other sites and finding that they end up outranking us for our own content. While the referral traffic can of course be useful, you have to weigh up whether the benefits of referral traffic outweigh the negative impact on the ability of your own site to rank well.
If you decide that referral traffic would still be an avenue you wish to pursue then perhaps you could consider providing content that is considerably different from the version that you keep on your own site or at least making it just an abridged version. Also make sure you publish the content first on your own site before allowing it to be published elsewhere.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
How to measure the penalty of duplicate content if we populate our provider bios on WebMD?
I work for a large healthcare system and we have an initiative to populate 2,500 of our our provider bios on WebMD. The proposed method for providing content is to supply it via API, in exactly the same way provider bio content appears on our site. When my colleague and I pointed out this would be an anti-practice as it would be disseminating duplicate content, we were asked to weigh: The penalty of the duplication The time and resources necessary to provide an alternative method (i.e., is there a programmatic way to supply unique content to WebMD) A few other questions we are investigating is if we can include links to each provider bio from WebMD to our main site. If this is the case, we can include a very short intro and direct users to our site if they want to learn more. The benefit of being included on WebMD is showing up for searches pertaining to expertise/specialties, as this will open our system to new users who likely won't search our providers by name. Any advice on how to measure the potential effect of displaying duplicate content on WebMD, considering their impressive domain authority?
Branding | | Account-Owner2 -
Does anyone has experience with Q&A Sites in terms of SEO value?
I would like to increase mentions to my site and brand. I thought the Q&A sites might be useful here (like Yahoo Answers). Can anyone give me some tips where to go and what to do? I would be very happy about that 🙂
Branding | | MichaelJanik0 -
Brand Name Cratering - possible N-SEO or Black Hat Attacks
Hello to the Moz Community, Let me start by saying, we are not an SEO company. We are the in-house agency for our parent corp, and the 7 companies in their portfolio. We manage their PPC and other digital items. None of the companies use an SEO company. Their "SEO strategy" is to not have one. They internally post on their own Social Media account, their own Blog, and send out their own Press Releases (which we help write the copy sometimes). One of the accounts encountered a very bizarre, and serious ranking problem around Dec 25th-30th. In the past when you Googled the company's brand name you would get 5-6 pages of internal content show up at the very Top of the results. Pages like Home Page, Blog Home, Contact Us, About Us, Client Reviews Page, etc. (core pages). There were then several other non core pages that would show up in the Top 20 results (my recollection is they controlled about 12-14 of the Top 20 results for the brand name). Unfortunately, around Dec. 25th this all cratered. And the only internal page that would display when you Googled the brand name was the Home Page (totally gone; even checking 100 rankings deep). So the question we have spend weeks trying to figure out is, what in the heck happened? We got together with the company to find out any and all possible changes or things could of happened since the first of December, which could have contributed to this cratering. Here is what we found: #1 The company made an acquisition of a smaller competitor in 2014. Around Dec. 10th they sent out a great press release announcing the acquisition. Since the press release was involving someone in the TV/radio advertising agency industry it was very popular (the best release they ever put out). The release was picked up by over 100 high page rank local TV stations, all across the U.S. (along with the normal companies that pick up online releases). The headline of the release was "Brand Name Reviews Assets of TV Ad Agency Competitor." Most of the stations that picked it up placed "Do not follow" links, but it was still an amazingly successful release. #2 Around Dec. 15th this 8 year old company received their first negative "client review." The review was not from a real client though, it was posted on Rip-Off report by a fake client, the Internet Mafia (reputation management co.) or a former employee/contractor. The posting was deliberately optimized. The URL and the Title Tag contained all sort of words like "Reviews" "Complaints" the "Domain Name," and the Company Brand Name (whoever did it, knew what they were doing). #3 Towards the end of December and into January the company received 6-8 bizarre root domain links. The links show to of come from domains that were just registered in November/December. Yet the domain name was already voluntarily forfeited by the beginning of January. Google Webmaster Tools is still showing the links, but when you go to the domain "all it shows is "cannot be found." WHOIS has screenshots of all of them though. Here is one: http://www.domaintools.com/research/screenshot-history/lizardeyephoto.com/ The domains themselves had nothing to do with the type of business this client account operates in, but the information after the / contained partial pieces of the company brand name. Here is an example: http://www.martygraveyard.com/buying-inexpensive-vehicles-at-on-line-community-automobile-auctions/ I personally don't think 6-8 new root domains could crater a website with 290 root domains (and 1500 links), but maybe those domains/sites are somehow "cloaked;" and they are actually showing bad information to the bots/spiders, but us humans can't see it? I honestly am not educated enough on the subject to know... #4 In mid January, three of the brand name pages returned: Home Page, About Us, Blog Home. However, the other pages are nowhere to be found. The companies Contact Us page, Client Reviews page (which used to rank 2nd), and all of the other Top 20 pages are totally gone. They are still indexed if you do a "site:brandname.com" search, but they won't show up when you Google the brand name. #5 Search results are almost identical with Bing and Google. So, here is the million dollar question: was our client's Brand Name deliberately attacked via an N-SEO Black Hat attack, in an effort to get it their internal pages to drop out of the rankings? Or did Google and Bing incorrectly issue some sort of partial penalty on certain pages due to the amazing success (and them believing it was some sort of link buying scheme) of the Press Release that was sent out at the beginning of December? If you read to the bottom of this, I am grateful for you doing so. Thanks in advance for anyone who tries to help us and our in-house client. Jake
Branding | | SBIM-Jake0 -
Competitors' dummy websites --- What SEO (or other?) strategy is this?
I work for an e-retailer. I've noticed that at least one of our competitors (and, I think, a second as well) has set up a neutral "third party" website that attempts to provide unbiassed information about different manufacturer's products. Of course, their products always win out over the competitor in these comparisons. But this one site (and another whose corporate backer I can't seem to figure out) is keyworded so poorly, and not branded at all. There are very few (if any) links to the corporate sponsor, or links, period. It's definitely not serving to have "Little Brand x" appear next to "Big Brand Y" in search results, either (again, really poorly keyworded). Other SEO seems really minimal. What do you think their strategy is? Is it a dumb waste o' money or something really smart that I'm not picking up on? Your insights most appreciated!
Branding | | Novos_Jay1 -
Do Dashes in Domain names hurt SEO ranking?
I have found conflicting reports online whether or not dashes in domain names hurt/help ranking. Example yourbrandonline.com vs your-brand-online.com? I found Rand's write up on how to select a domain and he suggests staying away from hyphens but mainly because its hard to remember or people my enter it in wrong. Here's his comment. "Reject Hyphens and Numbers
Branding | | JoshKimber
Both hyphens and numbers make it hard to give your domain name verbally and falls down on being easy to remember or type. I'd suggest not using spelled-out or roman numerals in domains, as both can be confusing and mistaken for the other." Aside from people possibly struggling to get there directly because of the domain name, are they OK to use? Or, are domains with hyphens considered spammy? Thanks in advance.1 -
Infographic for SEO
How can an infographic be used for seo purposes? What tools should I use to create one or should I just outsource the work? How much does an infographic cost to make?
Branding | | bronxpad0 -
Unique Content around GEO targets
Is there a way to produce SEO, google friendly Unique Content to ad to long tail pages, that will provide user value? Emample: 1800medigap.com we want to rank for keywords that are geo specific: Medicare Supplemant Insurance Balitmore Maryland Denver Colorado Medigap Insurance ......
Branding | | jdcline0 -
One big site or lots of little sites? Which is better for SEO and my business in general?
I realize there are some aspects of what I'm asking that only I can answer. With that said, I'm looking for some discussion about the pros / cons of each, and what are the most important factors that will push me one way or another. Let's say I have a company that has three products. One big brand, three little brands. Each of the little brands is focused on a particular sub-niche, all of which are in the general health & wellness niche. Either, I could create a large site for the big brand, with subsections for each product, and work hard on turning that domain into a goto site, with lots of articles, etc. The domain name for this one would be a made up word so I can fully control the search results. Or, another strategy would be to create smaller, "sniper" sites for each product, maybe even sites for each major search term that is interested in that product. These sites would have fewer articles. Descriptive, exact match domain names. Which is the best strategy? #1, #2, or a mixture of both? #1 seems legitimate, #2 seems a bit spammy. What are the pros and cons to each? Can anyone speak from experience about both these practices?
Branding | | monetize-2660060